The disk is working perfectly now though. All I did was create a shortcut to the folder media/hardmounted-hdd on my toolbar. When I click on it, it opens right up and I can read or write to the disk with ease. I don't have to mount or unmount anything. Is that weird or what?

OK, here some basics:
The file system table (= /etc/fstab) lists the file systems to be mounted on startup (or when you later say mount -a on a terminal) together with some options. Most of them usually are filesystems on physical devices (like local or remote (network) harddisks), some of them are not, like the proc filesystem, which is not physically present on any of your harddisks, but nevertheless accessible via your directory tree: every 'file' in the proc directory represents a process running on your local machine.

Unix-like OSes require filesystems to be mounted when they are to be accessible via the directory tree and to be unmounted when they are removed from the directory tree. This is done automatically for the filesystems in /etc/fstab on system startup and is usally not apparent to you. Nowadays, when you connect a FlashPen or a mobile HDD to your system, they are also detected automatically, automounted to the directory tree, and in KDE, for example, an icon pops up for each. Although this is what one may be used to from Win or Mac9 and earlier (Mac X is a Unix-derivate), linux users only some years ago even had to give an explicit mount command when they wanted to access their floppy disk. This wasn't so to torture them, but rather to prevent data loss. (And if you've ever worked with FDs, you may remember what could happen when you removed the FD from the drive to early.)

Therefore, a crucial difference between the icons which a properly working automounter pops up on your desktop and the link icons which you created sits in their context menue: The unmount option for the respective media.

If I got you right, you're working with a notebook and the Seagate over FireWire. With a line for your external Seagate in /etc/fstab, your system will try to mount the Seagate on start-up. Try out what happens when you start your Notebook with the Seagate disconnected; then you'll know why the line works for now, but is no good idea in general.

Quote:

I've ran dmesg and dmesg | tail over the last few days looking for that code to show up and it is nowhere to be found.

Is that a good or bad thing?

It is certainly a good thing, but it doesn't explain the source of the error.
Maybe the SeaTools? I mean: Just to be sure??

If I got you right, you're working with a notebook and the Seagate over FireWire. With a line for your external Seagate in /etc/fstab, your system will try to mount the Seagate on start-up. Try out what happens when you start your Notebook with the Seagate disconnected; then you'll know why the line works for now, but is no good idea in general.

When I start it up with the Seagate disconnected everything is still peachy. No problems that I can see, other than I can't open up the hdd folder, which is logical since it is not connected; Is that a strange thing to happen in this circumstance?

Quote:

It is certainly a good thing, but it doesn't explain the source of the error.
Maybe the SeaTools? I mean: Just to be sure??

Ran SeaTools and it found no errors. I'm believing my computer is like one of those Crunchwraps from Taco Bell, good to go! (Bad joke, I know).

When I start it up with the Seagate disconnected everything is still peachy. No problems that I can see, other than I can't open up the hdd folder, which is logical since it is not connected; Is that a strange thing to happen in this circumstance?

Err, I don't know actually, because we don't run any VFAT32 filesystems. With an unreachable ext3-filesystem (the native FS of Linux) in /etc/fstab, system boot-up will stop and complain.
-- Dan

Thanks for checking in and everything is going great. Upgraded to Fedora 9 on Friday actually. Still the same problem we had in FC 8, but the same fix works for FC 9. While I wouldn't call myself a master of Fedora by any standards, I will say that I feel like I have a better grip on Fedora (at least enough to solve any little problems I have along the way).

The more I play with it, the more I learn. The more I love it.

Planning on changing my graphical environment to XFCE today; Heard it is a bit lighter (on resources) than Gnome or KDE.

This weekend was the first op. I've had to make the change over to F9 since I've been working like a mad man.

"More time because I'll only be working 40 hours a week." -- How naive.

Anyways, that's how things are in my neck of the woods! Hope all is well in DanLand.